This invention relates to testing systems, and in particular to testing systems that test peripherals that interface with a processor using a particular communications protocol.
Processors or systems-on-a-chip (SOC) are ubiquitous in electronic devices and often serve as the central hub of data exchange between the processor and peripherals such as memory, cameras, displays, or communications devices. The SOC may include several ports or buses for interfacing with the peripherals. This enables more efficient integration of peripherals, resulting in electronic devices such as laptops, phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), personal media players, etc., that offer more features and power savings than before.
Such integration may require that the peripherals be tested, tuned, or calibrated in order to provide an electronic device that meets minimum performance criteria. Peripherals may need to be tested and/or calibrated because each peripheral may be unique and thus may have slightly different operating characteristics. For example, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) of the same make and model can be unique and differ from one another. Thus, merely interfacing any LCD with the SOC of an electronic device and operating each LCD according to the same fixed set of parameters may not yield desired performance.
Testing and/or calibrating peripherals after they have been installed into the electronic device are not practical, and in many situations are not possible. This may be due to the closed nature of the integrated SOC/peripheral solution and the specific communications protocols used to conduct communications between the SOC and the peripheral. One protocol, known as a mobile industry processor interface (MIPI) advantageously enables a processor to substantially directly communicate with a peripheral, thereby further enabling tighter system integration, but also making it more difficult or practically impossible to test and/or calibrate the peripheral after it is installed in the device.
Accordingly, what is needed is a test system to test a peripheral in accordance with a MIPI protocol.